Leering, staring are not OK, says Uber

A new Uber campaign against sexual assault doesn’t hold back when it comes to describing inappropriate behaviour.

Uber New Zealand country manager Amanda Gilmore said the app-based taxi company decided it would be helpful to provide specific examples to its 6500 drivers and 450,000 passengers ‘‘because sometimes people don’t understand what’s appropriate and what’s not’’.

The Driving Change initiative rolled out yesterday on the Uber website is explicit about what’s not OK.

Sexual misconduct includes leering and staring, comments about appearance, displaying indecent material, asking whether someone is in a relationship and soliciting sex.

Sexual assault is defined as attempted or non-consensual touching, kissing or sex.

Gilmore said Uber was showing its commitment by donating $30,000 to the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network to fund its education work.

She declined to reveal the number of complaints made about New Zealand Uber drivers or how many had used the app’s 111 emergency button introduced in late September.

But she said incidents were rare given the 15 million trips Uber made globally each day, and statistics on the New Zealand market would be released in a ‘‘transparency’’ report next year.

The New Zealand Transport Agency processes licence applications for passenger service vehicles such as taxis and appbased services such as Uber.

Its figures show that over the past two years, 34 out of 388 individuals assessed had passenger endorsements refused or revoked because of convictions for sex-related crimes.

The executive director of Auckland’s Help centre for sexual abuse survivors, Kathryn McPhillips, said Help assisted women who had been sexually assaulted by taxi or ride-share drivers on a ‘‘fairly regular’’ basis. She applauded the Uber initiative and said the definitions of sexual assault and misconduct helped prevent misunderstandings about inappropriate behaviour.

She said ideally recruiters should conduct face-to-face interviews with prospective drivers to assess their suitability, but if that was not possible, an online questionnaire could help screen out those displaying ‘‘misogynistic attitudes’’ towards women.

‘‘You could absolutely ask if it’s ever OK to touch a female passenger; some people will be clever enough to answer the test as if they’re a great guy.

‘‘But it will pick up some of it. Then you could go back to the person and ... give them more education.’’

Taxi Federation executive director John Hart said induction programmes outlined expected standards of driver behaviour and taxi companies were quick to act on the slightest suggestion of misconduct.

‘‘I’m aware of one where there was an inappropriate conversation by a driver and the driver was out within 48 hours.’’

Hart said deregulation of the taxi industry last year made it much easier to obtain a passenger licence and the concern was that many drivers were operating unsupervised.

‘‘There’s no-one is watching over them, no-one checking.’’